Garry's Mod
| Garry's Mod | |
|---|---|
 Garry's Mod Logo | |
| Developer(s) | Team Garry |
| Publisher(s) | Valve Corporation |
| Designer(s) | Garry Newman |
| Engine | Source |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
| Release | 2005 (original release) November 29, 2006 (Steam release) |
| Genre(s) | Physics sandbox |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Garry's Mod or GMod is a modification for the Source engine. It is a physics sandbox game that allows the player to manipulate objects and experiment with physics.[1]
Garry's Mod requires the user to own one Source engine based game (games including Source SDK), such as Half-Life 2 or Team Fortress 2, and that the Source game has been used at least once. This ensures that the necessary program files are provided to Garry's Mod. The game can be bought in a pack bundled with other Source games or purchased over Steam for $9.99.
Overview
Garry's Mod was created in 2005 by Garry Newman. It started out as a mod that allowed users to rope things to go together, and it made the pistol shoot out manhacks. Since then, the game has gone through eleven versions, adding more and more features until it became the established community-based sandbox game it is today. With the eleventh version of Garry's Mod, the version numbers were dropped, and it has now become simply Garry's Mod.
The current version of Garry's Mod receives regular updates via Valve's Steam service. Garry's Mod has been available for purchase on Steam since November 29, 2006.[2] It is also now referred to as a "game" by Steam itself, rather than a "mod".
There is also a free version, called Garry's Mod 9, now obsolete. It lacks many of the new features in the commercial Garry's Mod, it isn't as populated as it once was and has a small community. While the latest Garry's Mod Lua programming language system is both server-side and client-side, the Garry's Mod 9 Lua system is only server-side. This creates difficulties, such as the inability to render heads-up displays reliably.
Gameplay
Garry's Mod allows players to manipulate props from any Source engine game installed on their computer (or ones created by the community) using the Physics Gun, or Physgun, a blue version of Half-Life 2's Gravity Gun (The same model as the super gravity gun at the end of HL2) that allows objects to be picked up from any distance, adjusted in mid-air and frozen in place. A second, multi-purpose gun called the Tool Gun can perform many tasks such as weld objects together or rope them together with ropes or controllable winches, plus hanging lights and lamps, doors and buttons, or whatever the community is able to code it to perform.
Engine Switch
On January 15, 2008, Garry's Mod switched from the Half Life 2 Engine to the Source 2007 Orange Box Engine. This update, dubbed the 2008 Update, brought new menu systems and more advanced physics simulations to Garry's Mod. It also caused a large number of User Created Modifications to stop working. The change to the new engine allowed Garry's Mod to spread to new lengths due to the amount of new material and enhanced graphics brought in with the new engine. The engine change also added support for the Orange Box content, allowing maps and Items from any Orange Box game to be used in Garry's Mod (as long as the required GCF's are unlocked to the users Steam Account).
User-created content
Garry's Mod features an implementation of the Lua programming language, which allows users to create their own weapons, entities, game modes and other modifications. Such game modes can completely change the genre of the game. Some popular examples are Roleplay, Stranded, SpaceBuild, Melonracer and Zombie Survival. Game servers for Garry's Mod will automatically attempt to send any custom content running on them to the client when they connect. [3] The game has an official website for these community creations. If a file is impractically large to transmit from the server, the server refuses to send it and the user must download the file from the aforementioned website.
Wiremod is a popular mod for Garry's Mod, containing objects and components which can be used to add increased functionality to existing contraptions and objects built within the game. The components range from simple buttons and lamps to expression gates, CPUs, hydraulics and many others. An example of a contraption built using Wiremod would be a smooth elevator (one that does not move so fast the player is thrown about) or a drivable car which does not require use of the numpad. Advanced contraptions like autopiloting aircraft or laser-guided rockets and even fully-functioning computers are also possible, with the player only being limited by his/her knowledge of wire itself. Wire is almost universally accepted as a component of GMod and most established servers have it installed. Professional builders attack its usage heavily, stating that most of its functionality can be replicated with stock tools and ingenuity. In addition, mingebags (A derogatory term for noob in the GMod community) began to exploit the Expression tool to forcibly execute console commands on unwilling victims from simple annoyance to the spreading of in-game viruses written in Lua, although the ability to distribute viruses has been reduced with newer releases.
The Phoenix-Storms Model Pack, often referred to as simply PHX, is a model pack which includes many geometric objects (such as cylinders, cuboids and plane parts) and other miscellaneous objects to allow more precise building. The PHX pack also includes various material textures.
The appearance of SpaceBuild brought the advent of crude space-faring contraptions. To this end, the SpaceBuild Model Pack was created to make building these contraptions easier. The pack included a wide range of modular props designed specially for ship construction. Recently, the creators renamed the addon to SpaceBuild Enhancement Project, adding content like ship weaponry working in concert with Wiremod and GCombat (the latter is another addon that makes certain weapons able to destroy props). The pack is constantly updated and thus, it is officially designated as a fully working alpha version.[4] Users must refrain from installing too many addons. Many are created by amateurs and can cause overall game instability. Furthermore, large quantities of addons can drastically increase loading time.
List of games that meet the Source engine requirement
| Title of game | Release date |
|---|---|
| Counter-Strike: Source | August 11, 2004 |
| Day of Defeat: Source | September 26, 2005 |
| Half-Life: Source | June 1, 2004 |
| Half-Life 2 | November 16, 2004 |
| Half-Life 2: Deathmatch | November 1, 2004 |
| Half-Life 2: Episode One | June 1, 2006 |
| Half-Life 2: Episode Two | October 10, 2007 |
| Portal | October 10, 2007 |
| Team Fortress 2 | October 10, 2007 |
| Zeno Clash | May 12, 2009 |
Reception
Garry's Mod 9 has won nine Mod of the Year awards.[citation needed] In 2005, this included the Mod of the Year award at GameSpy,[5] ModDB,[6] and PC Gamer US.[7] GameSpy praised the game for being simple yet versatile, and noted the mod's unique quality that distinguished it from other notable mods.[5]
As of November 29, 2008, two years after its release on Steam, 'Garry's Mod' has sold over 300,000 copies, bringing the revenue to over $3,120,000.[8] Garry receives half of the $9.99, and Valve Corporation takes the rest. [9]
Mods and Addons
 | This article is written like a story. (April 2009) |
Garry's Mod has an broad array of mods and addons. These are sorted into categories, such as
- Scripted Weapon: A Scripted Weapon, or SWEP, is written using Lua code, designed by players. These can vary from melee weapons, like knives and swords, to guns and laser designators for indirect weapons like airstrikes, to tools like the web-shooting SWEP in a spider-man modification etc. Some of them use the C.S. Source weapon models or HL2 models, because of the difficulty of making/acquiring the view model. The weapons are displayed as large red error models if the player does not have the required model installed. Developers are free to create their own models using any model editing program, and convert them to the Source Engine's model format, or '.MDL'. The conversion will create the physics for the model in its process.
- Scripted Tool: A Scripted Tool, or STOOL, also made with Garry's Mod LUA coding, which adds to the users' list of tools. Some popular examples of STOOLS are: Door Tool, Keypad Tool, and Stacker Tool. Most downloads can be found here STOOLs are not like SWEPs because they are not separate entities. When an STOOL is created and loaded into the game, the tool is added to the user's list of tools accessible though the game's menu. Here the user may interact with the tool's options, and use the tool freely to manipulate the game to their preference. The most popular use of an STOOL is to create and interact with SENTs, because it is the easiest way for the user to manipulate the SENT.
- SENT: Scripted Entity is an entity (an object that has a function e.g. open and close, shoot something, etc.) that is scripted though Garry's Mod's Lua coding. Garry's Mod comes with one default SENT, the Bouncy Ball. A scripted entity allows the creator to completely create an entity, such as a turret, that has its own physics and interacts with the world. Scripted Entities act like the entities added into the Source Engine, but are customizable and modifiable by the creator.
- Scripted NPC: An NPC which is scripted in Lua defining its essential information e.g. who are enemies. These are the rarest scripted items. Some of them are quite professionally made, but eat up a large chunk of the player's processing power.
- Gamemode: A method of play adding or removing certain abilities from players, and causing modification to the game rules. Common examples of this include death-match modes, where STools are removed, and Spacebuild modes, where areas outside the specially designed maps are designated as harmful (such as space being devoid of air) and the player must build devices to traverse them.
These addons and mods range from the amateur to the professional. Other addons include modification to the basic Source files e.g. F.E.A.R. blood effects, The Dismemberment Mod which allows the separation of body parts (technical name: mutilation), prop models, gamemodes etc.. As with any Source mod, a broad variety of maps is also available to download. Some of these maps have a specific intention e.g. ragdoll destruction and mutilation, construction areas, sea battles, space battles with different planets, etc. Some custom-made addons have become a part of Garry's Mod, such as finger poser.
Garry's Mod has a massive scope for modification, and in fact was designed primarily with this as its goal, but due to the amount of modifications available to the player, and the lack of any form of quality control, Garry's Mod sometimes suffers from incompatibility issues. Modifications and maps are made that require certain elements from other source games, or conflict with other mods installed and thus display errors or chequered pink and black textures (the games' method of highlighting ones that are missing). In many cases, the only method of curing an issue, due to the wealth of configurations and thus the scope of potential problems, is to delete all modifications installed and recollect them all, often a lengthy procedure.
Requirements
Garry's Mod is often criticized for its high RAM requirements. This is not a fault specifically for Garry's Mod, as sandbox editors must cache the contents of the map in RAM. Slow gameplay can be avoided by intelligent construction of creations (properly utilizing in-game tools to reduce the amount of physics calculations) and installing more RAM in the user's computer.
Official minimum RAM requirements are cited as 512MB, though the Garry's Mod community often recommends at least 1GB for optimal performance.
Official Forum
Facepunch Studios is the official forum for Garry's Mod. It is open to anyone, regardless of ownership of the game. It has forums dedicated to the discussion of mods, maps, LUA scripting, construction, along with other Garry's Mod and non-Garry's Mod related discussion.
References
- ^ "Garrys Mod". ModDB. Retrieved 2008-06-16.
- ^ "Steam - Garry's Mod". Retrieved February 22 2008.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|dateformat=ignored (help) - ^ "Garry's Mod Lua Wiki - Resource.AddFile". Team Garry. 10-2008. Retrieved 2008-10-05.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ See the SBEP Wiki for more info.
- ^ a b "GameSpy: PC Mod of the Year 2005". GameSpy. 2005-12. Retrieved 2008-08-20.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Mods of 2005". ModDB. January 2006. Retrieved 2008-08-20.
- ^ "???". PC Gamer. 2006-01.
{{cite magazine}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite magazine requires|magazine=(help) - ^ Newman, Garry (2008-11-29). "GMod10 second anniversary blog post". Retrieved 2008-11-29.
- ^ "Garry's Mod - Valve Developer Community".